Abstract
Thermionic emission across a very small effective Schottky barrier (0–0.2 eV) are reported as being the dominant transport process mechanism in very low‐resistance ohmic contacts for conventional AuZn(Ni) metallization systems to p‐InP formed by rapid thermal annealing. The barrier modulation process is related to interdiffusion and compound formation between the metal elements and the InP. The onset of low specific contact resistance is characterized by a change in the dominant transport mechanism; from predominantly a combination of thermionic emission and field emission to purely thermionic emission.